1999 – Football: Omaha Tech, 1949

The 1949-50 Omaha Tech school annual staff tried its best to review the football season and make it sound interesting. “It would be virtually impossible to pick out the one outstanding game of the season,” editors concluded. “Every one was thrill-packed.”

Well. To put it a few other ways, every game also was a romp… a flat-out walkaway… a good thumping… a very long night for the opposition. Victories all for the Tech High squad anywhere from 13 points to 46. Coach Ken Kennedy’s team had six shutouts and gave up only two touchdowns in an 8-0 season that was aptly rewarded at the end with the state championship.

This team was behind just once all season long, briefly in the Benson game when Benson scored the first touchdown. Tech won the Missouri Valley championship, the Intercity Conference championship as well as the state title.

“The impressive way the Maroons marched through an undefeated campaign is all happy history for Tech rooters,” wrote The World-Herald’s Don Lee. “They’ll have a right to crow about the Blitz of “49 for as long as they wish.”

Ray Novak, Ralph Brown, Mike Cottrell, Jerry Lawson, Leonard Singer and George Sader all made all-conference, which gives us an idea on how dominating this team was in a strong conference. Brown, Singer and Novak were all-state. Novak was inducted into the Hall of Fame as a pioneer athlete on the same day this team was honored as a golden anniversary team.